The plant, even the non-toxic variety, is non-edible to grazing animals, but honey produced from it is edible

Conventional, toxic Jatropha plants are familiar backyard and fence plants in many countries and people are familiar with it and its non-edible nature.

Jatropha plantation products

Pruned biomass:

to keep the plants at a height of about 2m, pruning would be required every year. Depending on plant nature and size between 1.5 and 5kg dry matter would be generated from 1 plant through pruning

Jatropha fruit fractions:

the major production item from the jatropha plantation are the fruits. They yield the following fractions on processing.

Freshly harvested fruits

Dried fruits – 3 days of sun drying

Fruit Husks

The fruits can be mechanically shelled using simple locally made machinery. Both fresh and dried fruits can be de-husked. The wet husk is ideal for mulching the plantation. For dry fruits mulch forms about 40% w/w. Dry husk has an energy content of 14MJ per kg and can be used as burning fuel.

The seeds form 60% /w of the dried fruits. They can be mechanically shelled into Shell and kernel

Jatropha shell (mechanically shelled) forms about 37.5% of the dry seed. It has a high energy content of 18MJ/kg and is a good burning fuel

Kernel forms about 62.5% of the dry seeds and can be crushed to separate oil and kernel meal

Jatropha oil forms about 60% w/w of the kernel and is an ideally fuel oil and feed stock for bio-diesel and bio-aviation-fuel. Non-toxic jatropha oil has potential to become an ideal edible oil.

Average fatty acid composition (%) of Jatropha curcas seed oil

Oleic acid (C-18:1)

35-51%

Linoleic acid (C-18:2)

27-42%

Palmitic acid (C-16:0)

9-22%

Stearic acid (C-18:0)

5-8%

Arachidic acid (C-20:0)

0-2%

Myristic acid (C-14:0)

0-2%

Palmitoleic acid (C-16:1)

0-1%

Typical physical/chemical properties of Jatropha curcas seed oil

Calorific value

37.8 MJ/kg

Appearance

Light yellow liquid

Specific gravity at 30°/30°

0.92

Acid value

1.24

Saponification value

197

Iodine value

102

Unsaponifiable matter

0.004

Non-toxic jatropha kernel cake forms about 40% w/w of jatropha kernels, contains about 60% crude protein and is an ideal animal and fish feed ingredient. Its protein have a high nutritional quality also for humans.

Conventional toxic jatropha seeds are crushed without deshelling, yielding about 28% w/w of oil and the rest seed cake. This contains 3-4.5% N, 0.65-1.2% P2O5, 0.8-1.4% K2O and 0.2-0.35% S and has been scientifically proven to be an excellent organic fertilizer. The phorbol esters present in the seed cake act as a biological pesticide particularly against soil nematodes, slugs and snails that are harmful to plants.